George b



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GEORGE B. ARNOLD, 0E NEW YORK, N Y.

MANUFACTURE OF RUFFLES.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 28,244, dated May 8, 1860.

To all whom 'it may concern.'

Be it known that I, GEORGE B. ARNOLD, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and Improved Buflie, possessing advantages over all ruffles hitherto made, inasmuch as it is cheaper to make, more regular and uniform in its appearance, and more firmly secured.

The nature of my invention consists in confining the tucks or gathers` in place and securing them to a binding or ungathered piece of cloth, by one, and the same series of stitches, or in other words causing one series of stitches to perform the double duty of confining the plaits and att-aching them to the binding or other material.

As ruflies have hitherto been made, one series of stitches have been required to "pucker7 or gather the cloth, and another and subsequent operation was necessary to attach the gathered cloth to its binding.

To enable others skilled in the art to make my improved rutile I will proceed to describe it and the means which I employ for its production, by `the aid of the accompanying drawings in whichq Figure l is a section of the ruliie as sewed to the binding. Fig. 2 is a similar section with the ruffle turned over for use, and Fig. 3 is a section showing the arrangement of the two pieces of cloth and the stitches confining them.

All the figures are-on a` greatly enlarged scale, and similar letters refer to like parts Y in each.

A is the gathered or puckered cloth, lying in folds as shown in Fig. 3.

B is the binding which is straight or smooth, and C, C, C, are the sttiches passing through both A and B binding each fold to itself and also to B. The parts A and B are sewed together in the position shown in Fig. l, and then the ruffle is turned back as shown in Fig. 2; or the binding, B, may be folded as shown in Fig. 2, and the stitches be made to pass through both thicknesses of B, if found desirable. Stitches C are represented as common chain stitches, but it is evident that any other form of stitch may be used without affecting the character of the invention.

In producing my improved ruflie I prefer to use the mechanism described by me in an application for patent for improvement in sewing machines filed about Dec. 28th 1859, but any other suitable mechanism may be employed. In the machine described by me in the specification referred to, two distinct feed motions are employed, each capable of being adjusted separately from the other. One of them works upon the piece A before it reaches the needle and the other takes hold of the pieces A and B after they are sewed together. It will be seen that if the first one moves farther than the second a gathering of A must take place between them, and consequently near the needle. A stitch is then made which fastens the fold thus formed to the piece B, when the operas tion is repeated, the difference between the motions of the two feeding devices regulating the fullness of the gathers. A stitch is thus made for each fold of A except when from some cause a fold is missed or misplaced.

In gathering a rufHe as hitherto practiced great irregularity of the plaits was unavoidable from the fact that the gathering thread could not with any ordinary amount of care be made to act equally upon all parts of the ruiiie. To obviate this difliculty in part it is customary to whip or scratch the plaits, by a sharp instrument to cause a fold at or near the proper point.

This process is tedious, expensive and tends to injure the tenacity of the fabric. In my invention such an operation is entirely unnecessary.

I do not wish to confine myself to precisely one stitch to each fold or plait, as less or more may be used in some cases without affecting the character of the invention, neither do I wish to be confined to any particular means of producing my improved ruffle, so long as the article produced is identical.

Having thus fully described my invention, I claim The ruflie herein described as a new article of manufacture, the gathered cloth A, being secured to the binding B by the single series of stitches C, which perform the double duty of confining the gathers and of securing the gathered cloth to the binding substantially as herein set forth.

GEO. B. ARNOLD.

Witnesses THOMAS D. STETSON, G. H. BABoooK. 

